3 days ago
Legendary trainer dies after suffering fractured skull in freak accident
Bill Turner, one of Britain's most beloved trainers whose racing career spanned six decades, has passed away following a head injury sustained in a tragic accident on Monday.
Turner, who celebrated his 78th birthday on Sunday, suffered a severe skull fracture after being struck by a horse at his stables in Sigwells, Somerset.
The former jump jockey, who never regained consciousness, was celebrated for his expertise in training two-year-olds, claiming victory in Doncaster's Brocklesby Condition Stakes, traditionally the opening juvenile race of the season, on six separate occasions.
Turner had entered Red Snapper to compete in the Richard And Louise Fox Wedding Anniversary Nursery Handicap at Chepstow today.
Speaking before racing commenced at the Monmouthshire course, his daughter Kathy informed Sky Sports Racing: "Dad passed away about an hour and a half ago. We had the phone call on the way up in the lorry.
"I'd already made the decision a couple of days ago that the horse was to run in dad's name, in his honour.
"Whatever happened, he would have wanted that and he slipped away this morning.
"The love that that man had – he wasn't just my dad and my sister's dad, and Ryan's grandfather, he was everyone's dad.
"The people that he helped all through his years, they look at him as a dad.
"The messages and the support from everyone has just been absolutely outstanding."
Despite his advancing age, Turner was renowned for his relentless work ethic and was preparing a non-thoroughbred horse for the sales at the time of the accident, , reports the Mirror.
"He would have preferred to have been going flat-out up the gallops but unfortunately just a freak accident," Kathy added.
"I still can't get round that this injury has done this to him because I pulled him out from underneath horses on the gallops.
"It was only last Sunday he was up on my sister's salon roof, re-felting it!".
"That was him - you would have never changed him."
Turner's last triumph in the Brocklesby came in 2013 with Mick's Yer Man, ridden by his grandson – then a 7lb claiming apprentice – Ryan While, who said: "There is never going to be another gentleman like him – a gentleman in everybody's hearts.
"He's done everything for us and everybody else and I just hope we can make him proud in some way."
